
Show Notes
Dug out from the RISK! archives, this June 2014 episode goes straight for the seedier side of growing up, getting by, and getting out alive.
Brian Cirmo spends his last night in downtown Utica the way he and his heavyset childhood crew always did, at the strip clubs, before his friends pull one prank too many and leave him stranded on a corner. Jake Hart lands in New York with a head full of Bukowski, no plan, and no money, and turns a month and a half of homelessness into a running experiment in how low he'll let himself go.
(Content note: attempted abduction)
Cathy Smith drops acid, sticks out her thumb across early-1970s Pittsburgh, and climbs into a windowless van that turned around a little too eagerly to pick her up.
Leave your comments on the stories and find episode details and music credits at risk-show.com/podcast/seedy-cre537
Be Part of RISK!
🎟 See RISK! live New York City on Tuesday, December 8, 2026
✍️ Pitch your story
❤️ Support us on Patreon
💵 Make a one-time donation via PayPal or Zelle to [email protected]
📚 Shop merch or the RISK! book
🎓 Take storytelling classes with us
🎥 Hire Kevin as a coach or get personalized videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from RISK!
A classic RISK! episode from July 2014 built around three situations that everyone involved would happily have ended earlier.
Ploy Anderson is rushing out of her Bangkok house for a lunch date, a hair roller still clipped under her helmet, when a 10-wheeler drifts into her lane. Abel Athi Kumar is easing into a slow Sunday when his housemate starts screaming by the pond, where a python has his cat Whiskey in its coils. And Art Attaphon, reading alone in a tiny Silom library, checks Grindr, and winds up signing a consent form in a stranger’s hotel room.
This week we're revisiting the first RISK! episode ever recorded outside the United States. In July 2014, the show traveled to London for a live event co-produced with Spark.
Two RISK! favorites come back for Latine Heritage Month, handed to guests who know the territory. Brenda González & Delsy Sandoval, Latina co-hosts of Tamarindo podcast, join us to talk both stories through and celebrate Latine lives that rarely get to be this light.
Three of the most memorable stories from the last six months of RISK!, back in one place.